to point out that formula feeding doesn't necessarily require you to be sterilising bottles and scooping out powder in the middle of the night...

[itsakindarabbit]

Keep seeing this on threads which mention ff...how people couldnt be doing with getting up in the night andstsrilising bottles/making up feeds.

I bf and ff but found ff no problem at night - i would take up a carton of ready made formula and a pre sterilised bottle and i could feed without getting out of bed.

And yes, i know ready made formula is expensive and not everyone uses it. But some of us do/did.

"You also can't discuss the subject sensibly if you don't acknowledge that while BF is usually best for baby, it isn't necessarily best for mother."

There are lots of things which are best for babies, that may be not best for mums. I didn't find breastfeeding comfortable, convenient or easy all the time that I was doing it, but hey ho, I'm an adult with a sense of perspective, and know that it's not going to last forever. Most people can still enjoy good mental health, enjoy life and enjoy their children, even when they're having to make choices that put their baby's needs ahead of their own. Christ, it's something we all do every day. Obviously if you dislike breastfeeding (or any aspect of parenting) so much it plunges you into a depression you have no choice but to sort it out or stop. It's still a shame that so many babies are being denied the benefits of breastfeeding.

All I'm pointing out is that there's something particular to UK mums or UK culture that makes unusually large numbers of women unable to cope with something that women in other cultures mostly find OK. (because women in all the other countries I've mentioned also have the option to stop breastfeeding, but tend not to in anything like the numbers that do over here). Go figure - it IS a cultural thing.

Right, so avoiding the whole BF/FF bolleuxe (and it is bolleuxe) because I already got my quota of that on another thread this week.

I really think whether BF/FF at night is a faff or not depends on your baby and your family set-up. (Like most stuff to do with parenting...)

FF for me is easy because we make up the day's bottles beforehand. When DS was in our room, when he would wake DH would go and warm the bottle (we live in an apartment so kitchen is in the next room) and bring to me to feed DS (or he'd do it himself). So that was easy. The bottle would be warm in the time it took me to change DS' nappy (he wouldn't go back to sleep without a clean nappy).

If I had been able to bf, it would've been ok for the first wee while as the crib was next to my bed and I could've brought him in. That would've been easy. But now that he's too big for his crib and we can't fit a cot in our bedroom - I would've had to get up, go to his bedroom etc. No less hassle than doing it with a bottle. I didn't have any problems with co-sleeping in theory (we tried it to help get DS to bf) but both DH and I would wake up in cold sweats and terrified that we'd squashed him, so it wouldn't have worked for us.

But for my BF mate, different story. Her DH sleeps very very lightly, so their DS was in his own room from day 1. So every time he woke up, she had to get out of bed, go into his room, get him out the cot and feed him. That sounded just painful for the newborn phase, especially!!

Another BF mate, her DS won't feed lying down, and the layout of her bedroom means that the cot has to be at the other end of the room, not next to the bed. So she gets him out of bed, and then has to prop herself up in bed to feed him.

I do think that people who only bf go on like stuck records about what a faff FF is. When it's not! How could it be that hard when (statistically) most UK parents do it, day in day out?

Polkadot - caring about babies having the best nutrition doesn't exclude me from caring about other aspects of their welfare.

I know people who dislike breastfeeding advocacy want to paint it as obsessed with breastfeeding to the exclusion of all else, but really, most people are sensible. They realise it's not an 'either/or' situation. That the lives of babies and small children can be improved in lots of ways, more breastfeeding being one of them.

We make compromises daily re parenting choices.

Why oh why do some mothers chose this particular one to bang on and on about?

Here's a suggestion chose another one,there are plenty of pretty weighty issues to pick from,might liven things up a bit.

When people say FF is a faff, are any of them parents who have tried to FF?

I ask because the people who tend to bang on about BF being better and trot this out as a reason seem to me to be unlikely to FF so are unlikely to have got into the swing of preparing formula and doing formula feeds.

This type of thread is as old as time. I hate when others judge new parents decisions especially when it comes to bf v ff. I never wanted to bf - didn't try. Firmly told the hv and hospital that I didn't need/want to discuss this - DH is a gp so I had all the information I needed to make the decision (with DH). Both DC's were healthy happy babies who slept 8hours at night from 12 weeks. I went back to ft work when they were 4 months so DH and took it in turns to do the late feeds/disturbed nights. He's more of a morning person than me so I got the lie in at the weekends - all this couldn't have happened if I had bf

You illustrate my point perfectly Parker, BF would've been a massive faff for your family, whereas FF was not.

Shag

" I didn't find breastfeeding comfortable, convenient or easy all the time that I was doing it, but hey ho, I'm an adult with a sense of perspective, and know that it's not going to last forever. Most people can still enjoy good mental health, enjoy life and enjoy their children, even when they're having to make choices that put their baby's needs ahead of their own."

hey ho.....

Can I ask just because you found something easy what on earth that has to do with the other billion ladies in this world who are all entirely differnet to you with different bodies., brains, circumstances and lives.

I always find that ....I slightly uncomfortable...sort of ...." Even I Queen of all birth related matters found pushing out several 13 pounders on good breathing technqiues alone whilst simulatenously BF the rest....can do it - why cant you lot?

Polka

I wonder if its because they feel they are failures in other areas of parenting, so they cling to the fact they made certain choices and therefore are good DM's.?

Its bloody odd! The whole of parenting coming down to one or two choices...that are physical.

In support of Shagmunds comments - I feel that there is a refusal now in discussions about bf/ ff to allow anyone to say that breast milk is better for the baby. It is seen as somehow an attack on others - how can we have got to this point?

Formula is great. I mix feed my own son and am so glad formula exists - it makes my life easier and I am a happier person for it.

BUT - breast milk is better, especially for newborns - and children OVERALL - statistically speaking - are better off breastfed.

Of course it is normal to care how other peoples babies are fed - just like you can care about lots of societal issues. I think it is sad that BF rates are so low in the UK - that is not a judgement against individuals, it is a general point about overall levels of breastfeeding.

and - of course lets have much more discussion about safe and healthy ways to formula feed - as that is how most babies in the Uk are fed.

Bf may protect a mother from pnd??yeah??
In the case of D- mer sufferers it may contribute to pnd

Excuse the shouting...

But....

THIS THREAD IS NOT TO DISCUSS THE BENEFITS OF BREASTFEEDING!!!!!!

It is to dispel the myths around 'bottlefeeding is a faff' and to give tips and advice to mothers who choose to bottle feed.

Quite frankly, there are many other threads out there to discuss breastfeeding in whatever means you wish. I'll see you on those, I've plenty of advice and information to offer on both methods. So, kindly, do fuck off and post on other threads, or start your own.

As you were.

I'm from a BF shining light country (New Zealand). Have got mates who've had babies in the past 12 months in Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia too, also big BF nations. I had my baby in a baby-friendly (ie supposedly pro bf) hospital in Dublin and I had the worst post natal experience by a long shot compared to my mates.

The difference in rates is down to post-natal support. That's the long and the short of it.

Tell you what though, there's not anywhere the same degree of argumentative shite about bf/ff in New Zealand. Ok there's a bit in the media but nowhere near as bad as in UK & Ireland.

I'm sorry Detective!! I couldn't help it, I posted initially about the faffiness/not faffiness of FF and then I got sucked in!! Argh

Threads comparing any element of FF & BF are like a black hole!! We all get sucked in and then get verbal diarrhea.

Right. Back on topic. As I said in my other post. YANBU, OP!!

Well sad, thedetectives.

I honestly think that some people want ff to be a faff. Like the faff should be a punishment or something? I found ff piss easy. Sorry if that upsets some of you.

BUT - breast milk is better, especially for newborns - and children OVERALL - statistically speaking - are better off breastfed.

Statistically speaking - you hit the nail on the head there. Studies which demonstrate improved outcomes for breastfed babies almost always disregard other contributory factors, such as social deprivation. When those factors are removed the only benefits are a reduction in stomach bugs. Studies comparing BF v FF children in the same family found no difference in health outcomes.

Besides which I don't see many threads where parents who boil their broccoli are berated by those who steam, y'know. There are a million choices we make for our kids which affect their health. Let's get a sense of perspective on this.

There are a million choices we make for our kids which affect their health. Let's get a sense of perspective on this.

YY!

I have to say chunderella I have found your posts interesting and have made me think - you are right to warn of the danger of assuming that women in countries with high bf rates are doing it from complete freedom of choice. I still think that as shagmund says, our culture mitigates against establishing bf in many ways - expectation of how often a newborn needs to bf for example - I think it is not made clear and it can seem very overwhelming ...and the difficulty of feeding in public etc

But anyway - you make thoughtful points .. And - I agree that there may be many women breast feeding around the world who would love to have the option to mix feed but can't afford it or feel unable to admit it

chairmanwow

" Let's get a sense of perspective on this."

Sadly a sense of perspective is something that some posters lack, they seem very blinkered and keep on cranking out stats.

Stats are very useful used - in a context.

They are not the whole picture and never ever are.

Some people fail time and time and time again to grasp this.

"Statistically speaking - you hit the nail on the head there. Studies which demonstrate improved outcomes for breastfed babies almost always disregard other contributory factors, such as social deprivation".

No they don't.

Not modern ones.

In any case, why on earth do we need studies to tell us the blindingly obvious, that fresh human milk is a more complete and more nutritionally appropriate food for human babies than chemically altered animal milk, which has been dehydrated and then rehydrated with tap water? Really? And if a baby is getting a food which isn't 'complete' (and formula can't be said to be 'complete' if it doesn't contain all the elements found in breastmilk) why does it surprise us if this manifests itself in health and developmental differences like patterns of weight gain, arterial stiffness, IQ, vulnerability to infection, SIDS, diabetes etc?

Seriously - why is it seen as eccentric and extremist to think that the sole food a baby is fed on for the first six months of life might influence health and development in the short, medium or long term, in a whole host of subtle or not so subtle ways? Breastmilk and formula ARE NOT THE SAME. Why do we expect them to have EXACTLY the same effect on the growing body?

CAN YOU PLEASE START A NEW THREAD IF YOU WISH TO DISCUSS THIS!!!

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